A Voice for the Houseless: All the Trash
Raelee Childers, houseless and with a substance abuse problem, is writing a sometimes column for us. She says she hopes to open the hearts and minds of those that are so quick to judge a book by its cover. Comments will be monitored for civility towards the author as well as other commenters.
Disagreements are fine. Personal attacks are not.
A few people have said in previous comments that if a camp was left clean that we would probably be left alone. Honestly I really wish that would happen but sadly I know that it wont. The only reasonI say this is because I usually do keep my camp clean from trash and other things. I try not to let it be known that I’m there. I was raised by my Grandmother and Great Grandmother, so I do know how to act lady like or talk with manners. I always try to say hi and ask people that walk the trail how there doing.
Yes, I may be homeless but that doesn’t mean I have to live or act like I am. You are not the only ones that gets fed up by all the trash and other bullshit that seem to follow with the title of being Homeless. I even went as far as cleaning up trash of places where others have camped. I don’t know how many bags of trash that I’ve put out on the trail of the city truck that come through almost every morning around 9 am. Just not too long ago I couldn’t sleep so i took a walk down towards Del Norte Peir there was trash every where but in the garbage cans right next to it. So I took off my backpack and started to pick it all up. Now I cant completely blame the homeless entirely on the trash that’s on the trail. Believe it or not but I have witnessed people of the community that walk the trail just toss it to the side. Probably thinking that the homeless will just get the blame for it because honestly who really wants to hold on to their trash until the get to the next trash can. There are 2 trash cans at the Park’n’ride, the next 2 cans are at the end of Hilfiker by the Waste Water Treatment Plant. That’s quite a ways for anyone to carry trash. Or from the Dog Park on Truesdale St all the way down to the pier there are no trash cans in between the two places.
Now I can understand why the City of Eureka hasn’t put any on the trail behind the mall. And the answer is of course is the the Homeless. But there are ways to be able to have garbage cans on the trail that the homeless can’t get into to make a mess of everything. If the city used the same kind of garbage cans that they use for out at the Samoa Boat Ramp and bolting them to the ground would make it impossible for people to dig in the trash cans.
Also at the far end of the Sears parking lot there is usually a lot of trash down there. I can say that I know for a fact that 90% of that doesn’t come from the homeless at all. I have see numerous time people in there vehicles dumping trash down there. Now i can’t say for certain why they are doing that. The only reasonable thing I can think of as to why is that the homeless will get the blame for it. That they are doing it purposely to make the homeless look bad in a way if that makes any sense.
Well that’s what I have to say on this matter. Until next time…..Thank you.
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Thank you for doing your part. Shame on those not doing their part. Yes, there are many ways the community trails could be improved. Trash cans that can’t be easily dug through is a great suggestion. Even better would be personal responsibility, but that one is hard to acquire due to the selfish greedy society we live among. What gets me is the idiots who throw cigarette buts all over and then get pissed at a soda can beside the road. Both piss me off equally and are both irresponsible littering. Please people, just stop.
The mental picture of a person having to root through a public trash can is chilling. There, but for the grace of Something, go us all.
I,too, am horrified to see the least fortunate dig through a garbage can for food.
Should never happen in America.
Even more horrifying is when they are so conditioned to this behavior that when given money to buy food while trash digging, they accept the money but just keep digging.
I agree that the trashiness of their scenes and the trails they seem to leave behind them wherever they go are the reasons for a lot of ill-will toward the homeless.
I’ve had an idea for some time that i haven’t yet fleshed out nor presented to any governing agencies… maybe someone can help me make it workable.
What about reversing the charges on bringing in trash? Instead of penalizing people for doing the right thing, add a financial incentive to put it where it belongs or to pick it up and pack it in. It could not be much: several hours of scavenging along bayside trails might buy you a nice burger and salad lunch– or who knows how exactly it would pencil out. But it would be a way not only to put jobless or homeless people to work beautifying the city and perhaps county– the same way the CRV program clears up reusable bottles and cans– it would also deter the more bourgeois, suburban folks from driving to remote areas to dump their mattresses or old TVs over the cliff. (The larger or more massive the item you legally dispose of, of course, the more you would be paid.)
Obviously, revenue would be lost from the dump fees people now pay. However, i think it would be fair to raise a retail sales tax some tiny percent to pay for the waste management program. After all, without retail sales there IS no trash. Nobody manufactures plastic and other non-recyclable junk from the free earth alone… without doing a study, i think it’s safe to say that close to 100% of all roadside, pathside, illegal dump, and legit transfer-station garbage was originally purchased (some of it food packaging, no doubt, which could not be taxed… but i think it would even out). Add a tax to those purchase prices, which the responsible dumper partially recoups when bringing in his (and, ideally, other people’s) trash.
Theft from domestic trash cans would be prevented by means not much more complicated than what we do to keep bears out.
This is the only way i see to get people motivated to pick up the waste which makes much of Eureka and Humboldt County truly disgusting. For a place that claims to rely on tourism for much of its economic health, we sure don’t seem to give a hoot about showing how much we care about and respect the beauty of the place.
Those who wanted to could donate the proceeds back to the program, to a particular public project or to a participating local non-profit.
Germany has developed a set of mandates that fit the communities there, requiring those who distribute retail trash (packaging as well as discarded used items) to provide for disposal. Packaging has become largely recyclable and recycled.
“the same way the CRV program clears up reusable bottles and cans”
But it doesn’t. The CRV needs to be quadrupled.
Didn’t the city stop the recycling centers because of Covid?
Yes lc and b, those are the right sort of approaches. Consumer pays for the program the seller is responsible.
Our society’s constant lip service to the God “markets” is only window dressing for policies that concentrate power and money. Sadly, simple ideas like those you mentioned that work elsewhere (with grounding in actual “free market” theory as described by the intellectual father of Capitalism) are left to comments sections.
She reminds me of a fellow inductee at Fort Ord. Wendell was from Arkansas and his Army issue boots were the first manufactured footwear he owned. I was taken aback when he told me this, and I said “you must have been really poor”. Oh yes Wendell replied; “dirt poor, but never dirty”.
Good job Raylee, and hope there’s a turn of fortune in your near future.
I’m afraid that there are going to be many more homeless in the near future. The attitudes expressed in the comments really surprised me Happily surprised. Caring is a great first step to finding a solution
When the South Spit was where Eureka Police sent all the homeless for years, the community grew to about 350 folks with a fire department, food bank, gardens even fenced yards with geese, chickens, & goats. Often others seeking a place to party would tip over the porta-potties homeless folks paid for, or they would abandon vehicles, and set fire to other vehicles. Folks from town would come to party on the weekends or during the summer and resented those “outsiders” who had toiled hard to eek out an existence and make a place to call home. They built a community. The school bus would come and pick children up. There were several veterans who kept guard. That was until Humboldt County decided that the South Spit community presented a public health threat. So the county used the US Marshal’s office to come in and kick down doors and towed everybody out and arrest those who did leave immediately. Then the California State Parks could buy the former Pacific Lumber lands and put up a locked gate to keep folks out unless you were lucky enough to have a key to those publicly owned land.
“That was until Humboldt County decided that the South Spit community presented a public health threat. ” yeah, murder kinda gives that impression. I remember that day…
What decade was this? I think I’m getting old but that all sounds new to me.
Would have been the early ’90s I think. I was listening to the scanner when it happened, and on CB. They radioed it on CB as cell phones weren’t really a thing back then. Teen girl shot in the back of the head or something like that. Or maybe that was a different murder and I’m getting them confused… it’s been a while. There were a lot more hippies and actual down-on-their-luck types out there than are at homeless areas now, who weren’t causing problems, but a lot of people were causing problems. Since it’d be kinda hard to enforce one type living there and one type not, it was slowly devolving into an area like our recent devil’s playground, but with the addition of abandoned vehicles everywhere.
So… the police couldn’t come up with a single clue, so they decided to punish everyone en masse, instead.
Thanks for the response, I remember the murder and the clean up, I remember it for several years before, but I don’t remember this utopian society as described. It must of been pretty well hidden.
It was the early 90’s. I had friends who lived in their van on the South Spit. I was astounded at the cynicism of the takeover. The South Spit was an example of how it could be possible, if we had the public will, to set aside areas for encampments. Of course the people who live there have to take responsibility, and as Bushytails points out, times have changed and the entire picture, both sides, has gotten worse. As for murder — don’t murders happen among housed people? Even high end house people? I think I’ve heard of a few….
Please. They don’t evict and raze Eureka when there’s a murder.
You think that’s grounds to destroy an entire community?
Thank you for being a responsible resident of Humboldt Co. I have seen so many videos and photos of people driving fancy trucks dumping their trash on the riverbars, less traveled roadways and even near Sears as you mentioned. The garbage problem happens all across the County and within all demographics. I wish the County Supervisors would work with the garbage companies to find another solution. Check out how other States handle their waste disposal. Others are way far ahead of us! Virginia for example…
Best article she’s done. I don’t think people are dumping trash thinking it’ll be blamed on the homeless, I think they are just dumping it In the trashiest areas with the least amount of enforcement. Which might be a revolving cycle they started with the trash.
Thanks Raelee! What you have shared is helping people to understand a difficult situation, in the face of many stereotypes about ‘the homeless’. A testament to your ability to effectively communicate about a tricky issue is that all the replies to your story are understanding and showing compassion.
I encourage you to continue to share what you see and learn. Besides the RHBB, consider calling into KMUD radio talk shows, like ‘Thanks Jah It’s Friday’ (9-10AM Fridays), ‘Politically Correct Week In Review’ (Mondays, 7-8PM, once or twice a month), ‘Open Forum’ (Sundays, 1 to 3PM, once a month), etc. You have an important message! Please continue to share it!
(Kym. If she doesn’t have easy access to read the comments she has inspired, please, if possible, help Raelee get copies of what people said. If there is any expense in doing that, get ahold of me. I will cover it).
Recently the City designated the Hikshari trail as a park as a way to close down the parking lots at 9pm. The EPD has two officers who patrol the trails. They drive a four wheeler with a cart in the back. They know where the homeless camp out and they will gather up their things and haul it away. The two officers alternate days. It would appear that their mission is to disrupt the homeless from camping as a way for the homeless to move some where’s else. But there isn’t a “some where’s else” other than another area within the City limits. Many of the homeless have gotten wise to the EPD patrols. They either take their things with them or as on the Hikshari Trail they hide their things in the bushes and return later to set up camp again. Anytime after 4 to 4:30pm the officers end their patrol and by 6pm one can see the homeless moving back onto the off trail sites. It’s a cat and mouse game and for the most part the mice know how to play the game. I am a frequent walker on the train mostly after my work day. I have a partner who is also a female who walks with me. I can attest that in the past three to four years we have never been bothered by any homeless person. A couple of times we were asked for money and we said we didn’t carry any cash on us. No one in the category of a panhandler.
I think after Betty Chin’s Homeless Village is up and running we will see more homeless people on the trail. And there will be the hardcore homeless who will not use Betty Chin’s facilities. I know of at least five or six homeless who walk the Hikshari South to the wooden bridge then make a right on a foot path by the railroad tracks that leads to the dunes across the slough. I know this because we talked to a homeless guy named Tex who lives over there. He was a nonthreatening guy probably in his 50’s or 60’s. We have only seen him twice in the past three plus years.
Last, and this has nothing to do with the homeless. The trail is a wonderful place to stretch your legs and enjoy a good walk. Our real threat is from some bicycles who never warn us when the approach us from behind and are traveling too fast. We ask them to warn us, but they just keep pedaling. Only a small number of bikers let us know they are passing. One guy on a pink bike has a bell he rings to let us know he is passing and another guy on a fat tire bike always say’s, “Passing on your left please”. And when he passes he says, “Thank you”. When we hear him we know exactly who he is and that he has slowed his speed. We have not experienced any problems with untethered dogs. Not with the homeless or the other walkers.
I am sure there are other walkers who have had negative encounters. I only speak for myself and my friend. I know my comment is a long read, but I thought it was important.
If you think that’s bad, go on any trail with some hills… the cyclists are perfectly happy to try shoving you out of the way at full downhill speed. Presumably they’re the same ones who blow through stop signs at full speed, blow through red lights at full speed, and demand all roads should be modified to suit their needs while contributing nothing.